Minnesota Supreme Court considers geofence warrants for first time

MN Supreme Court ruling on 'geofence warrants'

The Minnesota Supreme Court overturned a murder conviction due to issues with a "geofence warrant." FOX 9's Soyoung Kim has more.

(FOX 9) - The Minnesota Supreme Court is weighing the constitutionality of geofence data for the first time.

The majority opinion says the way the geofence warrant was applied in a murder case that led to a conviction was too broad.

Privacy concerns raised

The backstory:

The ruling stems from a 2021 case where a dead body was found in Dakota County.

Ivan Contreras-Sanchez was convicted of second-degree murder for killing Manuel Mandujano. Law enforcement connected Contreras-Sanchez to the crime using data gathered under a geofence warrant.

Contreras-Sanchez appealed his conviction arguing the geofence warrant was unconstitutional, but a Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld his conviction.

What is a geofence warrant? 

Dig deeper:

A geofence warrant allows law enforcement to request data from tech companies about devices within a requested geographic perimeter.

MN Supreme Court ruling

What they're saying:

The Minnesota Supreme Court says the way the geofence warrant was applied in this case was too broad. The majority opinion determined that because in this case, the request expanded beyond the geographic perimeter the warrant was issued on, it violated state law.

In Wednesday’s ruling, the state’s highest court determined that while a geofence warrants are constitutional, the data was applied too broadly in this case, making it "insufficiently particular under the Minnesota Constitution when it gives law enforcement unchecked discretion to determine which device identification numbers inside the geofence will be subject to an additional search for more location information."

The majority opinion also cited privacy concerns when searching for "intimate and deeply private aspects of a person’s life."

The other side:

In the dissenting opinion, justices questioned why a ruling was being made ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on a similar issue.

What's next:

The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the decision made by a court of appeals and is sending the case back to that court to "consider the merits of issues it did not reach."